


The world keeps spinning (but it's stuck without you here)

by MorganBartonRomanoff



Series: Avengers Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Natasha Romanov's Arrow Necklace, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Relationship, Red Room (Marvel) - mentioned, Reunited and It Feels So Good, avengersbingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganBartonRomanoff/pseuds/MorganBartonRomanoff
Summary: With Natasha off on a mission in Russia, Clint struggles with his feelings for her and the chaos of his own thoughts haunting him. Kate and Lucky tag along to make sure he doesn't do anything too stupid.Part One of my Avengers Bingo; Square filled - Reunited
Relationships: Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Series: Avengers Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600987
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	The world keeps spinning (but it's stuck without you here)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Avengers Bingo 2020 by [avengersbingo](https://avengersbingo.tumblr.com)

It had been five months and thirteen days since the last time he’d seen her. Fury had sent her in Russia, alone, possibly the worst place he could ever think of for her to be stranded on a long-term mission. He knew she’d have no back-up, no evac team, no nothing. Just a cover and her skills. If anything went south, she’d be on her own.

He’d bought the necklace six months ago. He’d got a glimpse of it in a shop window and bought it on a whim. Then doubt had snaked inside his mind and he’d chickened out. Then she left, and he'd been beating himself over it every day since.

Clint Barton was not known for his common sense. Fact. Natasha Romanoff was his impulse control. Also a fact. Without her around, he started being reckless. Careless.

When he’d found out she’d been deployed, to Russia, nonetheless, he’d barged into Fury’s office. The walls were soundproof, but he’d come out fuming and angrier than when he’d went in, slamming doors and scaring even higher-ups. He’d landed himself three months of paperwork duty.

He was stuck in a mind-numbing routine and he missed her like hell. He was furious that she had to be on her own out there, that he couldn’t have her back, in the one place that truly mattered, the place that still haunted her, even years later.

He knew she must have been after the Red Room. He just didn’t know why she hadn’t requested him as back-up. They were partners, for fuck’s sake. She knew she could trust him unconditionally. He was hurt and angry and frustrated. It made no sense.

So he’d kept up the mind-numbing routine. There’d been only two things that’d kept him going. The fact that she reported bi-weekly to Coulson and the thought that she would come back, sooner or later. Indefinitely. (Hopefully sooner rather than later.) She had to, otherwise he didn’t know what he’d do.

He’d tried to be confident in her. He’d told himself time and time again that the Black Widow could take perfectly good care of herself. Except it hadn’t really worked. His brain would play the dozens of ways her mission could go wrong every time he’d close his eyes.

He’d stopped functioning properly and it was obvious, despite the façade he’d tried to keep up. Coulson had sent him home, ordered him to get some sleep. Clint had always been transparent to him.

The necklace took up a lot of his time. He’d stare at it for hours on end, thinking of her, where she was, how she was. Imagining her coming home, to him.

When he wasn’t moping, he was getting in trouble. He’d found himself unconscious in more than one dumpster, bow digging painfully in his side. He’d got in a fight with his landlord and his gang. Saved said landlord’s dog. Adopted said dog. Now it slept next to his bed, chewed on his socks and stole his pizza, all the while looking at him with its remaining innocent brown eye.

When Kate had dropped by (uninvited) to tell him he looked like shit (he did) and mock his misery, she’d taken an instant liking to the mutt. Then she’d threatened to take him for herself. Then she’d threatened she’d just move in, you know, it’s easier that having to convince her landlady to allow her to keep a pet, and he’d just found himself _forced_ to kick her out at that point. Smart-ass protégées were only fun when they weren’t making fun of _him_.

She’d come back the next day, pizza box in tow, plopped down on his couch, snuggled his dog and stared him down until he’d relented and sat down next to her.

As annoying as she was, her pestering kept him from spiralling.

She’d been aware how close he’d been to hijacking a jet and flying himself across the ocean, completely ignoring the fact that he had about zero idea where she actually was, and getting himself stranded in the tundra. So instead, she’d swallowed down the demotion of babysitting a grown ass man and tried to get as much amusement out of it by tip-toeing across each and every one of his nerves. Not that it’d been hard, with him as grumpy and sad as he’d been.

The days bled into nights bled into days and he still hadn’t heard anything about his partner. Coulson refused to let him get back to work and so with the shooting range off-limits, the not-so-tall rooftop of his building was the only safe place he could think of. He didn’t usually need one. He’d just go vent to Natasha, drag her off to the gym floor and calm down to her mere presence. His safest place wasn’t a place at all. It was a person. And this person had disappeared five months and thirteen days ago.

Word came in on a Tuesday. Technically, word wasn’t supposed to get all the way to _him_ , but Coulson knew his agents and the circumstances were dire enough to ignore the rulebook.

She’d been surrounded in an underground lab, some shit about researching embryo modifying and child brainwashing. All about the perfect little soldier. It hadn’t been supposed to be a base of operation but her intel had been faulty and she’d ended up in an ambush. She’d blown her way out of there and managed to get a tail. No one had heard from her in over three weeks, it seemed. They’d kept him in the dark for over three weeks.

His first instinct was to fight. Fight Fury, fight the Russians, fight the world for never giving her a damn break. Panic was surging through his veins and he wanted nothing more than to just track her down and bring her home all over again. He would have, if it wasn’t for Kate droning on and on the mantra that _She isn’t dead. No one has said that she’s dead. She’s Natasha-fucking-Romanoff._

She all but tied him down and told him to sit tight on his ass while the real spy did her job. (She didn’t mean herself. Kate was a spy as much as he was a millionaire.)

And another mind-numbing routine settled in. Exist. Stare at the necklace. Try not to think about Natasha. Fail. Repeat. When he thought about it, it wasn’t that much different to his life for the past five months up until that moment. He was just moodier and crankier.

Lucky the dog laid in his feet with a sad look and Kate laughed at him every five minutes, a half-hearted insult darting out of her mouth in an attempt to lighten up the mood. He tried not to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d hit the bullseye more than half the times.

 _What kind of grown-ass man like you completely dissolves at the lack of his girlfriend?_ (Not my girlfriend, Kate.)

_Are you a fucking spy or a pathetic circus monkey?_

_If you keep up the merging with the couch I’ll take your dog and become the only Hawkeye in town, Barton._

_You’ve gotten fat._

_Oh my gooooosh, how can anyone be so_ whipped _?_

Katherine was a brat. He wondered why he’d saved her ass all those years ago. But then she’d make him coffee and let her hand linger on his shoulder just a second longer than necessary and he knew she’d suffer with him until Nat came back. _If she came back._

It wasn’t even that she was on a solo that bothered him so much. It was the not-knowing, after years of working as a team. It was like missing a limb and having no idea where it was.

He was in bed, staring at the ceiling wide awake, counting the seconds ticking along with his alarm clock. Lucky snored soundly somewhere to the side of the bed. Kate had left hours before, claiming that she had a life too, _and it doesn’t completely revolve around you, Barton_.

So with nothing else to do, he’d tried to catch up on the sleep he’d been missing for almost half a year. Except, obviously, that wouldn’t work out, and he’d be forced to resort to counting sheep and slowing his breaths and it would still be pointless.

He’d been just about to doze off when he heard the front door’s handle click open. His eyes snapped open and he was wide awake again, ears straining to hear. All he needed was a burglar. As silently as possible, he bent down to get a hold of his bow, arrow nocked at the ready and eyes glued to the doorway, when the bedroom door swung open painfully slowly.

Natasha stood with the living room light shining from behind her, basking her features in shadows. A heavy sigh of relief fell out of Clint’s lungs. His weapon was back on the ground in an instant, and they met each other halfway, at the foot of the bed. Lucky had woken up and was sniffing curiously at Natasha’s thigh as she wrapped her arms around Clint’s neck, holding on for dear life.

“I missed you so much,” he breathed out and she could only nod, crimson hair tickling his cheek. She smelled like bar soap and commercial airplane but she was there, alive, well, _there_. 

“The mission was a failure,” she mumbled in his neck and he shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but you.” He let her go, finally, and took her face in his hands to check for injuries. She’d covered a scratch on her forehead and a bruise on her cheekbone with cheap make-up as much as possible and he could see the red edge of a cut peeking out from beneath the midnight coloured turtleneck she was sporting. He’d bet anything there’s more beneath the clothes and he knew her well enough to ask her _if_ there’s more, because she was way too stubborn for her own good and wouldn’t admit it unprompted even if she was bleeding out. She shook her head and he couldn’t help but thank the stars above.

They stood there, staring, drinking each other up after months apart. Her lips were right there and he had to stop himself from gravitating towards them. She seemed to have given up fighting this thing, whatever it was, too, and they met each other in the middle again, moving together. His fingers tangled in her curls and her palm rested against his heart, and they both melted against each other. Eventually, they let the need for air overpower the need for the other.

Her gaze landed on the necklace on his bedside table, reflecting the light from the living room. Her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes filled with uncertainty, confusion, hurt. He took her hand and leaned over to snatch the delicate jewellery, placing it in her palm.

“It’s for you”, he told her with a smile. “I was going to give it to you earlier, but...”

She smiled and freed her hand to latch it in place, fingering the silver chain that resembled fine thread more than metal. A tiny arrow was nestled between her collarbones, winking in the light.

Something had shifted between them but it wasn’t that different to what had been before. They just weren’t held back by the chains of fear and anxiety anymore, not when it came to their partnership. They’d released the volcano of tension and emotions sizzling between them and it had erupted in an explosion of clarity. They shouldn’t have held back in the first place.

A warm furry head bumped against her knee and she scratched behind Lucky’s ears without taking her eyes off Clint.

“Since when do we have a dog?”

He raised an eyebrow, a smirk lighting up his face.

“Well, you’ve been gone an awfully long time, Tasha. Kate lives here too now.”

He laughed at her widened eyes and deemed the pillow in his face a well-deserved answer. Wrapping her in his arms to lean back in the bed, he started catching her up on everything she’d missed, which essentially wasn’t that much. He knew she’d tell him about the mission sooner or later, but this was enough for now. Having her laying on his chest, heartbeats thumping in sync, as they relished in each other’s warmth.

Safe. She was safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr: [ohwriteiforgot](https://ohwriteiforgot.tumblr.com)
> 
> Your comments make my day, so please do leave more of them! Thank you!


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